Kidney patients demand free treatment

Kidney patients demand free treatment
Sunday, February 22, 2009
By Our Correspondent

LAHORE

KIDNEY patients of the Sheikh Zayed Hospital (SZH) held a peaceful protest demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club on Saturday, urging the federal government to ensure provision of free treatment and dialysis facilities at the SZH and all other federally-controlled hospitals of the country.

The kidney patients and their relatives appealed to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani to take immediate measures to ensure free treatment, including dialysis facilities and medicines, to poor kidney patients at the Sheikh Zayed Hospital just as the Punjab government was providing all free of cost treatment to kidney patients in all the hospitals under its control.

The patients’ spokesman, Ali Irfan, said each quality dialysis cost Rs4,000 per treatment and a layman or even a white-collar person could not afford the treatment. He said the federal government was earlier providing some facilities partially in the Sheikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore, but due to non-availability of fresh federal funds, even such facilities were stopped.

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